Validating machines are known which are comprised of printers suitable to apply on a document a written text, a symbol, or in general any other type of mark suitable to indicate that the document has been correctly validated in the context of a more general processing system of the said document.
For example, said written text or phrase applied on a cheque can indicate that the cheque has been validly entered, or actually registered by the bank where the validating machine is installed.
A validating machine as above is described for example in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,044,620.
These validating machine are typically equipped with an opening through which the operator, such as a bank employee for example, inserts the document to be validated.
The document received in this manner is processed by the validating machine in cooperation with the management system within which the validating machine is installed, and is thus validated.
Considering the enormous number of documents requiring validation in rapid succession such as can practically occur, it is important for the validating machines to be able to minimize the onus of manual operations, and in particular, that their interface with the respective operator is such as to create working and use conditions that are as easy and practical as possible for the latter.
In particular, the Applicant has felt that in the field of validating machines, there is a need for these apparatuses to be constructed in a manner to enable the operator to insert the documents to be validated in very comfortable, rapid and safe conditions, and in particular, providing a good control of the document during the insertion step, in order to minimize the risk of insertion errors that could compromise or simply delay the validation operation.
From U.S. Pat. No. 5,294,204 a printer is known, intended to validate cheques or similar documents, wherein the cheques are inserted manually from above, or simply dropped inside a vertical guide of the said printer.
Upon the insertion or dropping in the vertical guide, the cheque comes to rest along its respective lower edge on a support base facing a print head, and in this position the cheque is printed by the print head, thus receiving a first printed line.
During this step, an interline device, comprising a plurality of rotating rollers arranged on the opposite sides with respect the vertical guide, is immediately activated to press the rollers against the cheque in order to retain it, and to rotate the rollers in such a manner that the cheque is raised with respect to the print head, thus allowing it to be printed with a second line just below the first printed line.
The Applicant noted that although the printer described and shown in this patent has the advantage of having a very compact structure, it has the drawback that the vertical guide is rather deep, at least when compared to the height of the cheque, and thus only a very small part of the cheque still protrudes from the top of the guide once it has been inserted thereinto.
This vertical guide configuration appears, overall, to limit the operator's possibility of maintaining good manual control and a correct grip on the cheque during the step of insertion into the vertical guide, or at least, it appears to force the operator to pay special care and attention to ensure that the manual insertion of the cheque occurs without problems and ends with a correct alignment of the cheque with the bottom of the guide.
Moreover, the walls of this vertical guide, because of the considerable depth, can cause excessive friction on the cheque, and in particular can disturb its dropping motion in the vertical guide, thus causing an incorrect alignment of the cheque on the bottom of the guide.
Printers intended to receive documents to be validated from the top along a vertical guide, in a manner similar to that of the printer in the previous U.S. Pat. No. 5,294,204, are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,944,620 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,399,038.
Also, a printer is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,080,513, for printing data both on a sheet and on a tape from a roll, wherein the sheet is intended to be inserted along a vertical guide of the printer in front of the tape, and a printing unit of the printer is provided for printing data on the sheet during a first step, and during a subsequent second step, after the sheet has been removed from in front of the tape, in order to print the data on the tape itself as well.
Moreover, in the field of validating machines, and more in general, in the field of document or sheet processing apparatuses, devices are known which act to receive and preliminary align the documents or sheets, before proceeding with feeding them towards another processing station or zone, where they are actually processed, e.g. printed or put into an envelope.
A device such as above is for example known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,699.
In particular, with reference to this field, the Applicant observed that many of these known aligning devices, such as that described in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,699, are of a construction that is rather complex and expensive, and in contrast thereto have a rather simplified system to check the correct alignment of the received document or sheet, for this reason, sometimes responsible for errors.